Full Metal Superhero Box Set [Books 1-6]

by Haskell, Jeffery H.

  “Pod him,” I tell Epic.

  Puff.

  Now, that just leaves—

  Fire and noise rains down and I tumble a hundred feet to the ground slamming into concrete and digging a furrow twenty feet long. My HUD flashes an angry red at me as system after system reports failure.

  Kinetic shielding 30%

  Particle Beams—Offline

  IP Cannons—Offline

  Kinetic Lance—Offline

  I manage to roll onto my back with a groan. All the things I’ve invented and this whack job with a stupid name is going to kill me. Real fear runs through my veins. Blood roars in my ears and my brain panics, scrambling for anything to reverse this.

  Propulsion—Offline.

  A shadow falls over me as I try to stand. Hand Cannon drops to the ground a dozen yards away.

  “You’re a tough piece of work, but at the end of the day— you’re only human.”

  He lifts his hand, finger out.

  “Epic…”

  A shadow slices across the sky and a bronze-tipped spear slams into the ground between us. Confusion passes across his face and mine. A spear? He straightens his hand out and ‘pulls the trigger’. Six feet of Spartan god slams the ground between us, shield facing Hand Cannon. The explosion impacts on the surface of the bronze shield. Fire and pressure shunt to the sides as if it hit a wall. Rocks and debris fill the air clouding my vision for a moment.

  When the debris settles, Protector lowers his undamaged shield. He gestures toward the spear. The ancient looking weapon leaps from the ground and flies through the air to smack against his outstretched hand. I’ve only ever seen him one time in person, sitting in the cafeteria at the Portland base. On TV? A hundred times. He is the most well-known superhero in the world. He’s also one of the few who doesn't operate on a team. After all, who could make him? He can go anywhere in the world, he’s nigh-invulnerable, and is so strong his upper limit can’t be measured as there is nothing heavy enough to test it. When I was sixteen he pulled a sinking cruise ship to shore using her anchor.

  “It’s over, Harold,” he says in a deep voice, that resonates even through my armor while pointing his spear at Hand Cannon… Is his name Harold?

  Systems rebooting… thirty seconds to full restoration, Epic informs me.

  “You can’t just come in here and save the day. You don’t get to do that!” Harold raises his hand to fire again. Protector flashes forward faster than Fleet could and slams his round shield into Harold’s chest sending him flying back twenty feet. Before he’s hit the ground Protector is on him. With one punch Harold collapses.

  Protector stands and looks around for a few seconds, his steely brown eyes scanning for threats.

  Say thank you, Epic prompts on the screen.

  “Right! Uh, thank you sir, Protector, sir.” I stammer. It’s one thing to see him on TV but… he’s amazing!

  “Arsenal, right?” He says in a much softer tone as he walks over to help me up.

  “Yes, sir,” I say. I don’t know why I’m suddenly saying sir. It’s just… he’s the only superhero I ever really paid attention to. He always seemed so incorruptible, so full of hope.

  “You can call me Syd, saying ‘Protector’ every few seconds is a mouthful,” he says with a sly smile. His helmet covers his head but his eyes and mouth are perfectly clear.

  He pulls me up no problem.

  Jamming has died. Authorities are en route. I’ve notified the local DMHA officer along with the US Marshals Service. ETA thirty-seconds.

  “Thank you, Syd, I was about to have my but whooped.”

  “About?” He says with a chuckle.

  “Fine, my butt was whooped.” My arms feel like rubber and if I didn’t have to fly back to Phoenix I could sleep right now. I put my feet together to blast off when he puts his hand on my shoulder.

  “I need to talk to you… somewhere else. Mind if I drive?”

  Drive? I nod. I have no idea what he means but if there is anyone I can trust, it’s the man who just saved my life.

  Flashing red and blue lights arrive freeing us to leave. I have Epic upload the footage to the locals and the US Marshals, that way I don’t have to stick around and answer a million questions. I give Protector—I mean Sydney – the thumbs. I’m ready to go.

  48

  Sydney… such a normal name for a not normal person. It sounds weird calling him that instead of Protector.

  He reaches around my waist and says, “Hold on.” With his free hand, he reaches back and hurls the spear into the sky. I’m not sure what—

  Holy crap! Air rushes by in a roar. Epic doesn’t even have time to tell me how fast we’re moving. I blink and we’re in orbit.

  Orbit!

  Earth, from here is a big, beautiful blue and green gem spinning majestically below us.

  I think the DMHA database is woefully misinformed about his powers. He does not teleport, but he certainly does not fly either.

  I want to say something but my mouth just hangs open. Ever since our fight with the Six I’ve wanted to do this and here we are, in orbit. Sensors pick up the vacuum around us, a slight radioactive emanation from the Van Allen belt, and lots and lots of space. Lots. He keeps a firm grip on me otherwise I would be turning to see the moon and beyond.

  We’re holding relatively still as the Earth rotates below us. I’ve seen the ISS camera as it traverses the Earth several times a day but seeing how fast the planet spins when were stationary is breathtaking. The East coast goes by, then the Atlantic Ocean, Spain, then Italy—

  He hurls his spear down, it vanishes in a second, leaving only a red trail from friction as it passes through the atmosphere. The next second we’re right behind it. Air roaring by in a heartbeat and then we hit the ground. I stumble a few feet with my hands out, my inner ear insisting that we’re still moving.

  “Holy crap!”

  “I’m sorry, I forget how disorienting and frightening that—”

  “Are you kidding me? That was frigging awesome!” I shout.

  We are in Greece, Delphi to be exact.

  “I’m glad you like it. After all these years of doing it, I still get a rush. Come, this way.” He marches forward to the old ruins. I’ve never really studied history, not the way I do physics and math. I’ve read a few, mostly American history. I have to admit, I’m partial to history around inventors like Ben Franklin and scientists like Newton.

  However, this temple seems familiar, I think I’ve seen it in a movie or TV show. Crumbling rocks and broken down arches dot the area. What little grass there is has a nice green color. In the distance, I see a modern city with the haze of pollution obscuring the skyline. If it weren’t for that I could almost believe we were back in time.

  GPS location confirmed. This is the Oracle at Delphi. An archaeological site where in ancient times the Greek people would come to consult Pythia, a high priestess of Apollo. A woman gifted with incredible powers of prophecy, or so myth tells us. The site was last used for this purpose in roughly the fourth century AD.

  “Is this where you hang your helmet when you’re not saving armored damsels in distress?”

  “Something like that.”

  Following him is like following a wall of muscle and steel. He’s huge and when he walks I can see the ripples beneath his skin. His breastplate, leather skirt, and sandals all look like he stepped out of an old movie. He leads me around the back of the ancient ruins that are little more than standing stones and crumbling foundations.

  He turns and smiles while he reaches for a pillar. His fingers brush a hidden button and there is an audible click.

  “Stand here,” he points to the ground next to him. “There are things about me others don’t know. They can never know,” he says while taking his helmet off. His eyes are the darkest brown I have ever seen. He steps closer to me and I fight the urge to step away. “But I’m told you’re trustworthy.”

  “I like to think I am,” I say lamely. How to accept a compliment
like that graciously is beyond me.

  The ground shakes for a moment then lowers. It’s an elevator! We pass through the level of dirt and stone and a door slides shut above us once below ground level. From beneath a blue light emanates lighting up a cavern in a soft light. The underground cave is amazing, a languid waterfall splashes into a small pond in one corner. Light beams into the room from behind the water giving which is where the blue light comes from. I’ve never seen water so blue.

  It is a good thing you moved me into the armor. This room is one-hundred percent signal proof. I would like to inquire as to how they have achieved that.

  When the platform halts Sydney steps off toward the far corner where a mannequin stands. He places his helmet on it, then leans his shield down. When he unbuckles his chest piece my palms start to sweat. I know he saved me and all but I hope he didn’t get the wrong idea…

  “How did you know this place existed?” I ask, trying to divert my nervousness. “This has to be one of the most explored historical sites in the world. I’m stunned no one’s discovered this underground chamber.”

  “It’s on a separate plane of existence from ours. Parallel to Earth, but off by a hairsbreadth. Or, at least that is how it was explained to me.” He finishes pulling the breastplate off, leaving him dressed in a simple knee-length red tunic, not unlike the ones the Spartans and Romans wore. All respect to Luke, but damn this man has muscles on his muscles.

  “You’re saying we aren’t on Earth anymore?” My nerves vanish with the scientific implication of his words.

  He nods, “I don’t understand all of the details, but Pythia does and she is the one who told me to bring you here. While the powers I wield are great,” he turns and waves his hand around the room, “they’re only half the equation.”

  “Did you say Pythia?”

  “That would be me,” a little girl’s voice says from behind. I leap in shock, stumbling forward and scrambling for footing as I turn to face an olive-skinned girl with long braided black hair and impossibly large eyes. She can’t be older than thirteen, dressed in sleeveless white robes with intricate gold stitching running on either side down to the floor. She smiles patiently with her hands clasped in front of her while I recover.

  I can see and hear her, but Amelia, she is not there in any other respect. No vitals, no thermal variances, nothing.

  “Are you saying she’s an apparition?” I ask Epic.

  She laughs, “No, tell your computer I am no apparition.”

  Now both Epic and I are speechless. My armor is sound proof. Epic does a fantastic job of knowing when I’m talking to him or the people around me… she couldn’t have heard me let alone know Epic is a computer.

  “What… what are you?” I ask.

  “I am Pythia, High Priestess of Apollo, Oracle of Time and Guardian of the Gates of Olympus.”

  “Right.”

  She smiles, “It amazes me, Amelia, that you invented a machine to walk for you, fly for you, think for you, yet are these the only impossible things allowed?”

  Stun round number two… how the hell does she know who I am?

  She gestures toward the far wall. The light level raises revealing a large wooden table with a spread of food that would make a king envious. Fruit, meat, cheese, drink, the whole nine yards. Protector claps his hands and practically runs over, “I’m starving,” he says straddling the bench seats and digging in.

  When Wardenclyffe Tower went online in 1903, Nikola Tesla and three square miles of New York vanished in an explosion that blew out windows in Manhattan. The best scientist of the day couldn’t figure out what happened to him. Von Braun, the German scientist who eventually joined America after World War Two was the one who broke the forty-five-year-old mystery. Tesla had opened holes into other dimensions. Superpowers were nothing more than the physics or reality of another dimension inhabiting one person. Who, how, and why we're still, and are still a mystery.

  I guess if I accept that, then I must accept this… to a point. I don’t for one second think the gods of Olympus are real. However, Mr. Perfect thinks his magic is real, and regardless of what I believe, he does have a flying carpet.

  “Give me a second, I usually catch on pretty quick but this is a bit much. You want to tell me how you know who I am?”

  “Please, join us?” she says moving to the table. A plate of food, with all of my favorites including a cold can of open Coke with a straw sticking out, sits across from Sydney. He’s busy wolfing down sliced ham, cheese, and the occasional grape.

  “No strawberries huh?” I say as I walk around the table. Sitting in the armor is never easy. While it is flexible, it is only flexible to a point. I can’t cross my legs or do fifty other things non-armored people can. I slip as best I can into the bench like seating. Epic triggers my faceplate so I can try the food if I want. I eye that straw, the conundrum of this is firing around my brain like a Gatling gun.

  “You’re very interesting Amelia. By far and away you are the most clever mortal we’ve ever met.”

  “Well, you are like five minutes younger than me so how many could you have met?”

  She laughs and it’s like chimes and bells.

  “She’s a lot older than she looks,” Sydney says between bites. “I know this is hard for you to accept, I’ve read enough sci-fi to know the science-minded find it difficult to imagine things they can’t prove, but trust me, she’s the real deal,” Sydney says with an earnest expression.

  I nod, “How can you be sure she’s just not a figment of your powers?”

  He takes a long drink from a bronze cup, “Good question. Mostly, because I don’t have any powers.”

  I laugh, he’s pulling my leg… He’s not pulling my leg.

  “You’re The Protector… I watched you pull a cruise ship… A cruise ship to shore using the anchor. And then just today you stood up to Hand Cannon with your shield and…”

  Oh. That’s not possible… my mind scrambles for another explanation.

  Pythias eyes light up and she giggles, “She is clever! I believe you mortals call it Ochams Razor.”

  “All things being equal, the simplest explanation is most often the true one… Your armor? Your powers come from the armor?”

  I suddenly wish very much I had his shield in my lab.

  “All of them, in a way. Putting the armor on infuses me with the strength of Hercules, the speed of Mercury, etc. But the real power is the Armor. If I were ever killed, Pythia would simply find some other worthy wielder.”

  How? His armor is bronze, it looks awesome, right out of Spartacus, but all the same, it’s bronze.

  “Let’s pretend I believe this. There are supers who have armor besides me, though none of their armor operates without them. They’re all elementals or mentally controlling constructs they wear. You’re saying the bronze shield leaning against the mannequin is really Aegis? Like from the movie?”

  He smiles, “Now you’re getting it. Aegis is the shield, the breastplate belonged to Hercules, the spear was forged by Hephaestus for Achilles. The helmet was a gift to Leonidas from Athena. She granted him his wish to defend Sparta from the Persians.”

  I shake my head, “Okay, okay, I get it. Ancient Greek gods and artifacts of power. Wow. Okay.” I raise my hands, “I know when I’m beat,” I grin, “Now tell me why you are sharing all this with me? The person least likely to believe any of it?”

  Sydney pushes his plate aside, “Do you want to tell her or should I?”

  Pythia glides over and straddles the bench beside me, looking up at me with her eyes like dark pools.

  “Amelia, of all the heroes you were drawn to Sydney as a child, why?”

  I open my mouth to speak when I clamp it shut. She couldn’t possibly know that… the wiggle of her eyebrow tells me she knows exactly what I was thinking. Either my telepathic defenses on the armor aren’t working, which I doubt is true, or there are some things I’m going to have to accept on faith… for now. I glance at the straw. That
I like Coca-Cola would be easy enough to divine. Heck, most of this she could know through hacking or careful observation. But there is no way, at least no way I can imagine other than what she is telling me, she could know I needed a straw to drink while I’m wearing the armor. Just no way. I decide to proceed as if what they say is the truth. For now.

  “Hope,” I say. “He gave me hope.”

  She nods, “Exactly as he’s supposed to. When the gods lived on Earth, before the natural dimensional orbit drifted from their home plane, they tortured humanity with petty wars and affairs. Since then they have… matured. The guilt they feel over how they treated humanity eats at them. When Nikola Tesla turned on his machine they were given a chance to right a great wrong. Sydney and I… we work together to help humanity.”

  “This is all very interesting, but how do I fit in?”

  “She’s the Oracle, Amelia, she sends me on my missions. With the spear, I can be anywhere in the world a few seconds. How do you think I know where to go? Why do you think I knew exactly when to show up today to save you?”

  Okay. I’m trying real hard to accept what they’re saying. Otherwise, The Protector, the most powerful human being on the planet, is out of his mind crazy. I really could go either way at the moment. However, there is an abundance of proof he’s not.

  “Sydney gives humanity something to hope for and with my powers, I try to guide him to do the most good. As he said, I’m an oracle. However, I can’t see the future, per se, but I can see probabilities. Likely outcomes of actions. I am… somewhat omniscient. I see thousands of futures, sometimes of an individual, like you, and sometimes of all of humanity.”

  I put a grape in my mouth, they’re delicious and I try to keep my skepticism in check. “You can see the future? Okay, cool. Again though, why bring me here?”

  Sydney glances over at Pythia, I can tell there is something even more pressing they want to share, but are concerned about how I’ll react.

  “Listen. You two obviously want to say something, and trust me, anything you have to tell me is going to be easier to accept than ancient Greek gods seeing the future and gifting humanity with a champion. I love sci-fi, not fantasy, this is all much harder to accept then you know. But as long as we’re shooting for the moon here, let’s pull all our cards on the table.”